12:53: A lot of people noting that AT&T Wireless CEO Ralph De La Vega is in the house. As is Twitter CEO Dick Costolo.

12:59: Should be starting shortly ...

1:00: Waiting. Sprint's logo popped up on Apple's website ... so that looks even more likely.

1:02: No Steve Jobs yet. Tim Cook just took the stage. No standing O, per GDGT. He says, "I love Apple," and I'm happy to host you. He's talking about his love of Apple.

1:03: Via Bloomberg: 'I LOVE APPLE AND I CONSIDER IT A PRIVILEGE OF LIFETIME' to be CEO.

1:05: Image of Cook on stage:

AP

1:05: Cook is talking about Apple's new store in Shanghai. Says it had 100,000 visitors on Day 1.The LA store took a month to hit that goal (via Engadget)

1:06: Now he's playing a video of the retail store in Hong Kong opening. Says he's watched the video 100 times and he would watch it 100 more times. Apple will be doing a lot more stores in China says Cook.

1:09: On Lion, he says it's been downloaded 6 million times in two weeks reaching 10% of the users. Cook says it took Windows 7 20 weeks to reach that sort of install base, according to GDGT. Of course, Windows has a much bigger install base, which is why it took longer.

1:12: 1 in 4 computers sold in the US is now a Mac.

1:11: iMac and Macbook Pro are the number one selling computers in the US. Mac platform has grown by 23%, the rest of the PC market only up by 4%, via Engadget.

1:13: The ceiling for Apple's Mac sales is extremely high, since so many people still buy PCs.

1:14: Now it's onto the iPod. Apple has sold 300 million iPods globally, with 45 million sold in the last year ending in June. 16 billion downloads through iTunes.

1:16: Onto iPhone 4: half of all iPhone sales in history are iPhone 4 sales.

iPhone's now account for 5% of all mobile phone sales — that includes feature phones and smartphones.

1:18: He says more on the iPhone shortly ... but for now it's time to talk about the iPad. The customer satisfaction on the iPad is 95%, people love it. Lots of schools are testing the iPad. Says Cook, Kids are going to be awesome on these touchscreen keyboards. (via TIMN)

1:21: Cook claims airplanes are more efficient because iPads replace 40 pound manuals ... what do we think? True?

1:22: "Despite everybody and their brother trying to compete with iPad, three out of four tablets sold in the US are iPads." — Miguel Helft tweets Tim Cook.

1:31: Forstall has just revisited the newsstand, the Twitter integration ... now he's on to the camera. Talking about the shortcut to the camera on the lock screen, which is a lovely feature, but we already knew about it. (People are getting restless for new stuff.)

1:32: You can edit photos to remove red-eye, which is cool, but we want no red-eye from the start!

1:33: For what it's worth, Apple's stock is modestly down. Let's than .5%.

1:40: Basically, so far this has been a total recap of what we already know + some rah rah stuff about Apple sales + Cards, the new card making app. Not complaining here! This is how Apple rolls, just pointing it out.

1:41: New app! "Find My Friends" You can see where your friends and family are at. Creepy? Foursquare-killer? Probably not! But, it's interesting. (Can't believe Apple didn't call it "Places.")

1:43: You set when and how you are sharing your location.So, if you want your location to be aware from 3 PM to 11 PM, you can do that. Anyone going to use this? We doubt it.

2:14: From GDGT, Schiller: "For decades technologists have teased us with this dream that we can talk to our technology. But it's never come true! It's such a let-down! What we really want to do is just talk to our device!"

2:15: They're calling it Siri, after the app they acquired. Now it's a demo. It's all about asking questions of phone.

2:16: Scott Forstall is on stage, demoing. Hold down the home button and then the mic pops up. Pretty cool: "Do I need a raincoat today?" Siri responds "It sure looks like rain today." (via Engadget)

iPhone available October 14. Preorders start October 7. It is available on Sprint.

Phil Schiller says this will be the "fastest roll out" to date.

2:37: Tim Cook is back on stage to recap what we saw. Here's what he said, per GDGT: "When you think about it, only Apple can bring all these things together in such a powerful and integrated experience. I am so incredibly proud of this company and all of the teams that work so hard to bring the innovations you've seen today to reality."

Preview post: Apple's newest iPhone is about to be revealed and we're going to bring you the most important news and commentary as it's going down. (Note: We're not on hand, but we'll be keeping track of all the news from all the outlets as it breaks.)

That's the hardware. What about software? We're expecting to hear about new software features like a voice activated assistant. Hopefully Apple can do for voice activations what it did for touch screens. We're skeptical, but curious to see what Apple has on tap.